GENEVA — Human rights activists are calling for an independent investigation into deadly pager and walkie-talkie explosions in Lebanon and Syria, suggesting the blasts may have violated international law if the devices had been designed as booby traps.
The blasts, widely blamed on Israel, killed at least 37 people and injured more than 3,000, including many members of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed group. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
The UN Human Rights Office and some rights groups have cried foul, saying the strikes were “indiscriminate” because it is almost impossible to know who was holding the devices, or where they were, when they exploded. But some academics insist the blasts were precisely targeted because the devices had been distributed to Hezbollah members.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is tasked with protecting civilians and other non-combatants in conflict and strives to remain neutral, said: “This was a unique operation and it will take time to have all the facts necessary to form a legal opinion.”
The committee declined to comment publicly on whether the operation violated international humanitarian law, which is difficult to enforce and sometimes flouted by countries.
International law has never addressed the issue of communications devices carried by people. The Geneva Conventions, which set out the rules for protecting civilians in times of conflict, were adopted 75 years ago, long before pagers, cell phones, and walkie-talkies were widely used in society. The legal situation is further complicated by the fact that Hezbollah is a non-state armed group operating in Lebanon, a sovereign member state of the UN.
“There must be an independent, thorough and transparent investigation into the circumstances of these massive explosions, and those who ordered and carried out such an attack must be held accountable,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement.
Were these devices traps?
The question of how to apply international rules to such an attack seems to center primarily on whether an explosive hidden in a personal electronic device can be considered a booby trap. Israel has been accused of carrying out targeted strikes and assassinations in the past, but a large-scale strike using mobile communications devices is virtually unheard of.
A booby trap is defined as “any device designed or adapted to kill or injure, and which operates unexpectedly when a person disturbs or approaches an apparently harmless object,” according to Article 7 of a 1996 adaptation of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which Israel has adopted.
The protocol prohibits booby traps “or other devices in the form of portable objects apparently harmless but specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive materials.”
Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said the rules were aimed at protecting civilians and avoiding “the devastating scenes that continue to unfold in Lebanon today.” She also called for an impartial investigation.
The convention also sets out rules for the use of landmines, cluster bomb remnants and other explosives. It prohibits the use of other “manually delivered munitions,” such as improvised explosive devices “designed to kill or injure and which are activated manually, by remote control or automatically after a specified period of time.”
The beepers were used by Hezbollah members, but there was no guarantee that they had them in hand at the time of the explosion. Many of the victims were members of Hezbollah’s extensive civilian operations, primarily serving Lebanon’s Shiite community.
Laurie Blank, a professor at Emory Law School in Atlanta who specializes in international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict, said the laws of war do not explicitly prohibit the use of booby traps, but they do impose limits on them. She added that she believed the attack was “very likely legal under international law.”
She said the booby traps can be used to target enemy forces in or near a military objective, including communications systems used by Hezbollah fighters.
“That said, it is not clear whether this is a trap. For example, if the attack is targeting the pagers themselves, it is not a trap,” Blank wrote in an email.
Does the “indiscriminate” nature of the attack make it illegal?
Experts said the pager explosions suggested a long-planned and carefully crafted operation, likely carried out by infiltrating the supply chain and rigging the devices with explosives before they were delivered to Lebanon.
“There is no world in which the explosion of hundreds or even thousands of pagers does not constitute an indiscriminate attack prohibited by international law,” Mai El-Sadany, who directs the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, a Washington-based think tank, wrote on X.
“People with pagers were scattered across civilian areas, from shopping malls to crowded streets, from apartment buildings to hospitals, surrounded by women, children and men,” she told The Associated Press. “An attack like this cannot anticipate innocent bystanders in the impact zone or careless children who pick up the pager when it beeps.”
British lawyer Geoffrey Nice, who prosecuted former Yugoslav and Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, said in an interview: “It’s pretty clear that this is a war crime. And we have to expose it for what it is.”
He noted, however, criminal conduct on both sides of the conflict between Israel and Hamas, referring to rocket fire by Hamas fighters into Israel and casualties caused by the Israeli military operation in Gaza, where the Health Ministry says at least 41,000 people have been killed since Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the latest war.
Rules require countries to ‘minimise’ damage
Amos Guiora, a professor at the University of Utah’s SJ Quinney School of Law, said the strikes were “justified in the context of self-defense,” but he acknowledged the risks of collateral damage against civilians.
“International law does not specify a number for legitimate or illegitimate collateral damage, it simply aims to ‘minimize’ it. The tragic reality of collateral damage is that innocent people will be injured and killed,” he said. “I feel that in this case, a conscious effort was made to minimize it, knowing that it will never be perfect.”
“This particular attack strikes me: whoever carried it out is as precise as they come,” said Guiora, who spent 20 years in the Israeli army and advised its commanders in Gaza in the 1990s.
Israel has already faced strong international criticism for its military response in Gaza and, more recently, in the West Bank since the Hamas attacks on October 7.
In May, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor issued arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Hamas leaders behind the attacks, for their actions in the war.
Israel has ignored the UN Supreme Court’s order to halt its military offensive in southern Gaza after South Africa accused Israel of genocide. Russia has also ignored the court’s call to halt its invasion of Ukraine.
Hamas has also been investigated. Human Rights Watch released a report in July concluding that Hamas-led armed groups committed numerous war crimes during attacks on Israel.
Hezbollah has been associated with numerous indiscriminate attacks on civilians over the years, including in Argentina, Bulgaria and, of course, Israel.
Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press reporters Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.
Originally published:
